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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22484347">Leaving the hospital</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/PatterCake/pseuds/PatterCake'>PatterCake</a>, <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/secreterces5/pseuds/secreterces5'>secreterces5</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Sweet comfort from a sour earl 🍋 [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Adventure Time</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/M, LSP is surprisingly nice, Other, Writing Collab, post first therapy, pretty sure you can tell which parts weren’t written by me</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-01-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-01-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 13:55:44</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,398</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22484347</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/PatterCake/pseuds/PatterCake, https://archiveofourown.org/users/secreterces5/pseuds/secreterces5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>So Charlie (PatterCake) went and wrote a sort of base for a sequel to my story and sent it to me, and I loved the idea, so here’s the finished thing. I guess it could count as a collab?</p><p> </p><p>After your first therapy session, you meet Lemongrab again. This time, he’s accompanied by a lovely lumpy girl we all know and love.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Earl of Lemongrab/Lumpy Space Princess, Lumpygrab, background Lumpygrab, it's not THAT background secret</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Sweet comfort from a sour earl 🍋 [2]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1617742</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>8</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>lumpygrab fics by me</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Leaving the hospital</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>With a sigh, you close the therapist’s door behind you. That was… an experience. You feel like you got lots of things off your chest, but some of it is already coming back and some of it is getting replaced by new anxious thoughts, is the therapist judging you now that you left? What if you can never really get better and this way you’re just avoiding the fact that you’re just a horrible person?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Your hands curl into fists at your sides as you attempt to ground yourself. </span>
  <em>
    <span>This was a huge step, I have a right to be anxious, but it will get easier now that I’ve started,</span>
  </em>
  <span> you remind yourself and start heading down the hallway towards the exit. As you do, you spot two familiar creatures not too far ahead. Walking even closer, you recognize first the lemon earl who spoke to you earlier and a purple cloud with a star on her forehead, the Lumpy Space Princess without a doubt. She has her forearm in a cast, but doesn’t seem to mind. You also notice that for whatever reason, Lemongrab is holding a baseball bat. Deciding not to comment on that peculiar detail, you instead wave at him. “Hey, you’re still here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He waves back shortly before nodding. “Mmmmyes, the doctors took very long.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yea, bunch of suckers,” his girlfriend scowls momentarily, but then she turns to you and smiled, extending her good hand towards you and you shake it, “‘sup, you must be the one Lemongrab told me about! I’m LSP, but let’s face it, y’know that already,” she winks, and her comment toes the line between being egotistical and a simple joke. You get the feeling that a lot of what she says comes off that way. “Did the therapist help any? I went to counseling for a while myself and let me tell ya, it like… fixes your mentality super slow, like painfully slow, but it does.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Y-yea,” you find yourself nodding, because after all, you weren’t blind to the microscopic progress you had made already. “I think it was a good choice.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh hun, it was definitely a good choice,” she pats you on the shoulder. “You should totally be proud.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This makes you almost beam with newfound hope. “Thank you,” you manage to squeak, praying that you won’t start crying right here and now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The lumpy woman offers you a kind smile, and so does her boyfriend, and suddenly you feel… better, somehow, just a little bit. Maybe because you can see empathy in their gazes.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Trying to change the topic before things become awkward, you gesture towards the bat in Lemongrab’s hand: “So what are you guys gonna do now?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>LSP’s smile instantly turns into a malicious grin. “I’m gonna go smash up that lumping stupid vending machine for breaking my lumps.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And I, Lemongrab, am going to help!” Lemongrab smacks the bat into his hand while grinning, earning worried glances from other patients, doctors and nurses walking by, “Would yooouuu like toooo... help?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>You chuckle slightly, but already you can feel exhaustion overcoming you, so you decide to decline. “I mean… smashing up a vending machine </span>
  <em>
    <span>does</span>
  </em>
  <span> sound like a lot of fun, but… therapy is hard and… I kinda just wanna go home…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So you’re like… just going home then?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Selfconsciously, your gaze glides down to the ground. “Yeah, sorry.” </span>
  <em>
    <span>Glob, she must think I’m so boring…</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then do you wanna like… sign my cast?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Your eyes shoot back up to her in surprise. “Really? Oh, uh…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, I know, it’s kind of a big deal and super lumping special, so you should totes be thanking me, but yeah, you can like… write your lumping name, if you want.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This was so odd, she barely even knows you, and yet she’s offering this, something that, to your knowledge, isn’t really something complete strangers do for each other? Okay, you must’ve misjudged, because she seems nicer now. Trying not to look like this has been the most words you’ve exchanged with another living being in a while, you nonchalantly shrug. Your stammer probably gives you away anyways. “S-sure. Do you have a pen or…?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah, hold on, I always keep a pen stashed in my star hole… always gotta be ready to write down any lumping great ideas I get, because, you know, it’s not- look away perv,” she tells you as she starts rummaging through a hole in her forehead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>You turn away, embarrassed. “Oh sorry I’m not… I didn’t realise...”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“-and I don’t wanna hold back my beautiful mind.” LSP ploughs on.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And it issss soo veryyy… beautiful.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Wow, they’re kinda cute,</span>
  </em>
  <span> you think to yourself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re gonna make me blush, Grabby, and anyway, here’s your pen. It’s pink.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I like pink,” you say sheepishly. “Where should I sign?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well… Lemmy wrote his name and a cute lil love note right there-” she pointed at a few lines of writing above her elbow, “-because that’s the part of the cast that’s closest to my heart–”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Wow, they’re kinda obnoxious,</span>
  </em>
  <span> you think to yourself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“–but the rest of the cast is all yours.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hmm, okay… what should I write?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your name? ‘Get well soon’ or something, idk… something cool like… like a quote from my awesome play Summer Showers.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Oh, you’ve heard about that one. Maybe if you muster up the courage, you could go see it. Someday. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Baby steps,</span>
  </em>
  <span> you remind yourself. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I can’t overwhelm myself.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s hard to write on the cast, but you manage to scribble your name as neatly as you can. LSP retracts her arm to read it, and then says: “That’s a pretty cool name. Like not as cool as my name, obviously, but it’s up there. Anyway I’ll see you around- you can call if you wanna hang.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>You’re so shocked by her offer of talking again you almost forget to mention a small problem with that, but after a second of processing, you stutter out: “I don’t think I... have your number.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She scoffs. “Dude everyone has my numbe- I’m like, famous. Just ask around and-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Lemongrab lays a hand on her shoulder. “That may be difficult fooor our little friend… not everyone is blessed with yoouur confidence and sass… Here…” He writes out two phone numbers of a piece of paper and hands it to you. You glance at the slip expecting to see the neat, elegant cursive of a royal- or at least the kind of royal you imagine Lemongrab to be, but instead Lemongrab’s handwriting is a messy scrawl made up of some perfectly shaped numbers, and some that look scrawled and wobbly as if drawn by a child. Looking like the writing of and adult and child haphazardly mashed together into one style that reminds you slightly of a ransom note. It’s slightly unnerving, but if you thought about these two for too long, everything would eventually turn out to be sort of unnerving, so you decide not to think about it too much. Instead, you thank them and say your goodbyes. You ought to get back home.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>You leave the hospital. A bunch of banana guards run by you, one of them yelling into a walkie talkie: “ALL UNITS TO HOSPITAL! BONNIE AND CLYDE ARE AT IT AGAIN!” and other the screaming of the police sirens you can hear the distinctive sounds of someone whacking a far away vending machine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>You take another look at the slip of paper lemongrab gave you, hoping that trying to memorise the digits will distract you, but instead, you notice something shining through the thin sheet and turn it over to see that LSP and Lemongrab had been playing hangman on the other side.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>LSP mainly used words like “lipstick” and “hot stuff” and other words you could only imagine her saying, which judging by the strings of wrong letters and almost completed hanging men Lemongrab found hard to guess. But he in turn used some pretty long looking words when it was his turn, like “machiavellian,” “cannibalism” and “Gesundheit.” The last one LSP had crossed out angrily and written “CHEATER” next to.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>But there was one unfinished game. 10 letters. “_ _ i e _ _ s _ i p.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Putting the paper back in your pocket, you decide to try and guess the word.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Friendship.” You smile to yourself. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Yeah, it’s something like that.</span>
  </em>
</p>
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